


My Way Home (Is Through You)

by bonebo



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: sfw, you believe it?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 19:53:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7067746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonebo/pseuds/bonebo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>What's in a name?</i>
</p><p>It's the first thing he's told, as he comes online in an airborne ship among a dozen brothers he'll never know—<i>“Your name is Genitus, of Operation: Solar Storm. You're an Autobot MTO.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	My Way Home (Is Through You)

_What's in a name?_

It's the first thing he's told, as he comes online in an airborne ship among a dozen brothers he'll never know— _“Your name is Genitus, of Operation: Solar Storm. You're an Autobot MTO.”_

He doesn't realize, then, that it's an oddity; but then he barely realizes anything, in his state of blinking and scared and new. He's tossed onto the battlefield and there no one has time for names—it's all tactics and strategy and lessons, mechs he doesn't know telling him the best way to slaughter other mechs he doesn't know, killing a planet he can't call home in the name of ideals he's never had, a war he didn't sign up for. He's shuffled through the frontlines like the rest of the MTOs, all equally unimportant, equally ignored—they huddle together in the barracks when they can, whisper their names to each other like it's treason, in the hopes that at least _someone_ will know of their existence in this world.

It will be fleeting, they've been told. They know they will die.

Genitus, Plexus, Ilium, Raze, Deficit—Solar Storm is what they share, what makes them brothers, and it isn't until much later—when his brothers are gone, rusting away in the dirt with only one mech to remember them—that Genitus is taught this is wrong.

 _“It doesn't make you brothers,”_ one mech tells him, voice acidic and scathing; he and his beautiful twin are both offended by the MTO's bastardization of the word, his defilement of _their_ word. _“MTOs don't have family. Your name doesn't make you anything but disposable.”_

His initial shock at the venomous claim bleeds into hurt, then bewilderment—but the riddle is finally solved some months later, when he attends a memorial ceremony to honor those slain by the battle that had been his entrance into the world.

 _“Radiance of Tesarus, Momentum of Rivets Field,”_ the announcer reads off, voice somber and respectful; Genitus feels dawning horror creep through his lines, and listens carefully, spark whirling in his chest. _“Flashfire of Vespertine Blue, Slipshift of Praxus, Waylay of Port Residua...”_

Genitus realizes, then, what the twins had meant; why his name is hollow, why Solar Storm means nothing. Because where other mechs— _real_ mechs, his bitter mind supplies, aching in remembrance of every single time he's been shown the difference—have homes listed in their very name, he has none. Real mechs carry a constant reminder of where they come from, where they can always return to, where they will forever fit in.

His name does nothing but remind him, every time he says it, that he doesn't belong anywhere but on a battlefield.

It's a sparkpulse later that he realizes no MTOs have been mentioned through the entire ceremony—they're all nobodies from nowhere, not important enough to be remembered by the mechs they laid down their lives to keep safe, and the injustice of it makes his energon boil. His spark aches. 

Genitus of Nowhere leaves before the memorial is finished, and decides that he will hold one of his own; a ceremony where the mechs who had known nothing but the war for their entire short existence would be honored, for giving their very sparks to protect a society that couldn't care less about them.

It has to be done, and Genitus is the only one fit to do it—because as he remembers back to dark nights in lonely barracks, reassurances of _“I'll remember you”_ whispered like prayers among the only mechs he trusted, he realizes that no one else even bothered to learn their names.

 

__

 

The right mechs hear of his affinity for science, the universe aligns in his favor, and Genitus leaves the frontlines.

The New Institute comes calling, and he decides to give himself a new name—a better name, one mechs all over will come to know and respect. A name that is inspiring, and clever, and harmonic; a perfect name, for his new life.

But then he's introduced to the mech who handles his registration paperwork—a small, pretty bot of blue and white, with bright, clever optics that shine behind his glasses—and he promptly forgets just what that name is.

“...um, Brainstorm,” he finally stammers, sure that his seams are smoking, that his mind has short-circuited; as soon as he's spoken he inwardly curses himself for claiming what may very well be the single dumbest name in the history of Cybertron.

But then the little mech—Quark, he was told—repeats it, his voice soft and pleasant, and it becomes the best name Genitus has ever heard.

The rest of the registration passes in a blur—all he remembers is the end, where Quark tells him what a pleasure it will be to work together, wishes him luck in his new career. Genitus doesn't recall just what he'd said—some quip about any work being good work, maybe, or some silly comment about the Institute itself—but he'll never forget that it made Quark laugh and shoot him a smile warm and radiant enough to melt his sparkchamber. 

He leaves the meeting knowing exactly what the rest of his name will be. 

He will be Brainstorm, of Uraya—because Uraya houses the New Institute, and the New Institute houses Quark. 

And Quark is the closest thing to home that he has ever known.


End file.
